Counting Sunday, today is day 5 after my Covid vaccination. There were a couple of days of fatigue and arm tenderness. Then on Tuesday, my arm swelled and turned red at the injection site. Yesterday, I noticed a swelling of a lymph node at the base of my neck on the injection side that was also red. During all of this, the arm tenderness has decreased to the point where it's almost gone. The lymph node was the thing that was surprising. I always get injection site reactions. So, that's my history with the second Covid shot. Your mileage may vary.
Yesterday we rode, and it could only be described as unpleasant. We started out at 55 degrees with thick cloud cover and windy. Layers were worn. Then the sun came out, some layers were removed. Then the clouds came back and it rained on us. We went home, it stopped raining, so we headed out again. The entire rest of the ride banged both sides of the course between too hot and too cold. One climate would be plenty. The clouds were pretty good, though.
The agave is inching ever closer to blooming. It's also leaning precipitously. We're under a high wind/blowing dust warning for today, so the flower spike may go over - which would be unfortunate.
The individual buds are growing, but have not yet opened. I want to see that.
Jim is back at Lowe's, buying stuff for the upcoming exterior house maintenance project. I can't wait. More time on a ladder and more marine spar varnish are on tap.
The republican held AZ senate has won a lawsuit to recount 2.1 million
ballots cast in Maricopa country in the 2020 election. Thus far they have found no one
willing to do this, and so the ballots remain where they have been. In
the meantime, Mike Lindell, Dr. Lyle Rapacki, a far-right activist who
has claimed “demonic” forces are afoot in the fight over the Maricopa
ballots, and Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, who has developed a couple of failed
pieces of technology and went on to star as the Commander of the
Treasure Hunter Force on the History Channel, have focused their
attention on Arizona. One of their theories is that the counting
machines changed votes. Another is that the ballots for the orange
ectoplasm were stolen from the warehouse. The entire article is on Daily Beast. I did not encounter a paywall. The article is good and really points out the degree to which these people are wing nuts. Here is an excerpt.
On March 5, a handful of Trump supporters organized around activist Staci Burk visited Maricopa’s election office and claimed, without evidence, that the ballots could easily be accessed in the back of a warehouse. Then, one of Burk’s associates—an elderly man identified in right-wing blogs as “Earl S.”—was caught on security cameras heaving his body into a dumpster.
In the dumpster, they claim, they found a yellow trash bag filled with shredded ballots. Burk posted pictures of the shredded papers, including massive piles of paper spread out on a home in front of Earl S. on Facebook.
There was video of people trying, unsuccessfully to break in to the warehouse. These people are crazy. The entire republican party in AZ has lost its collective mind. It's an embarrasment to everyone who is not crazy. They're hell bent on killing early mail in voting, cutting polling place hours, and all of the other voter suppression laws currently in work in Georgia. AZ also wants you to send in a copy of your driver's license with your ballot. Hopefully that will not survive a court challenge.
Aaaaaaand, our idiot governor has just banned cities and counties from imposing mask mandates. So, bars and restaurants are open and nobody has to wear a mask in this state. One wonders if one really wants to live here. Fortunately, our mayor believes she has legal standing to enforce mask wearing and will continue to do so.
Angus, who writes BobandSophie, posted this video on his blog this morning. It's an excellent tutorial on how to understand efficacy vs. over all goodness of the vaccines. The short answer is that all vaccines are 100% able to keep you out of the hospital and out of the morgue. It's 7 minutes, and it very informative. Feel free to share it with people who need some education.
Other than whining about our politicians and the wind, I have zippity doo-dah all to report.
The wind has been incredible this year. And cold but at least next week is looking more normal. There is no hope for the wingnuts and they seem to be everywhere. Jim and I will continue our mask and isolation protections. These new variants are scary.
ReplyDeletethe Georgia republicans have even made it illegal to hand out water and snacks to people waiting in line to vote. also apparently, they have given the election commission the power to just change the winner if they don't like who the voters picked. Republicans aren't even trying to hide their hatred of democracy anymore. if Biden doesn't get the voter bill passed, that's it for this country. it will be authoritarian republican from then on out. buh bye American democracy.
ReplyDeletecan't you prop up the bloom spike somehow so it doesn't break off or go over completely?
Arizona is beautiful land. People maybe not so much. My friends live there in a "community" of fox watching republicans leaning toward christianity. They have lost ( if ever had) any semblance of being rational thinking human beings. We no longer talk, just wish each other well from afar.
ReplyDeleteI try to ignore the politicians here in TX. Similar nonsense goes on. Hope the agave bloom doesn't fall over!
ReplyDeleteOur country is losing itself. Much of it is out of its mind. I hope your agave pulls through.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a strap you could wrap around the agave spike and pull it over to something to straighten it? I would hate for it to fall over before those lovely blooms have a chance to open! Agreed, AZ and GA have gone over the edge. I hope some of this BS can be struck down as unconstitutional. No giving of water to people in voting lines in particular seems to be cruel as well as potentially dangerous.
ReplyDeleteThe Gateway Pundit is always touting Pulitzer and his ballot-counting craziness. It's exhausting. These people are indeed nuts.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to support that agave flower somehow? A big stake?
It makes sense to me that your lymph node might swell -- a sign that your system recognizes the virus in the second vaccine and is fighting it.
That's so interesting that your father worked in the FBI office years ago. When I first moved to Arizona, I was still pretty young and had come from a much smaller city so seeing that FBI office impressed me. It said "hey, you are in the big city now girl". Little did I know that the big city would be full of so many small minds.
ReplyDeleteI have heard so many different stories of reactions to the vaccine. I only had the arm soreness with the first shot and nothing with the second. At least, nothing I noticed. Hopefully those little antibodies were doing their work quietly.
I was so relieved when the State flipped Blue and was on the Right Side of History... but now the backlash, AZ has more Voter Suppression Bills pending than any other State, WTF!? As for Idiot Governor, well, he was late to the Party to begin with which is why our Stats were so dismal and we lost so many precious Souls that didn't have to perish. We're not the only Covidiot State tho', Friends and Family living in Texas and Florida I get really concerned about... it's bananas there. Cali is big, so that accounts for a lot of their trials, my Younger Brother lives there, he has serious comorbidities and it's amazing he's managed to risk assess so well in his State, given their stats. It's all so random how our Nation is handling this deadly Pandemic. Our Family in Europe and Mexico are flabbergasted at how America has done so poorly, the worst in the World, when it came to the discipline of doing the right thing and following the Science. Perhaps we've become a very spoiled egocentric Society overall? There are some parts of the surrounding areas I won't visit after having a bad Pandemic experience... some enclaves are very militant about mask wearing and are very Cult Devoted to the last Administration to where it's disturbing how mental they've become about it all. I don't know how we'll ever come out the other side of this if too many people can't or won't behave and do what they need to do. I've also heard 14 Species now have had the Virus jump to them... including White Tail Deer, Monkeys and some Felines... scary stuff if it's going to jump across Species so easily and effectively... since Animals aren't being Vaccinated! Yikes! Again, your Images are Arizona Poster Calendar worthy to draw people here to how Magnificent it is visually.
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